WhatsApp's Data Collection in 2025: The Meta Ecosystem

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WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), operates within a vast commercial ecosystem driven by data. While it assures E2EE for personal messages, its business model and integration with Meta's other services necessitate a broader approach to data collection, particularly concerning metadata.

A. Information WhatsApp Explicitly Collects (from their 2025 Privacy Policy):


Account Information: Your phone number (essential for registration), profile name, profile picture, and "about" information (status message).
Your Connections (Contacts): With your permission, WhatsApp accesses belgium phone number list your device's address book to identify which of your contacts are also WhatsApp users. WhatsApp states it processes these phone numbers in a cryptographically hashed format to prevent direct sharing of your raw contact list with Meta for ad targeting on other Meta products.
User Content (Unencrypted Components): While messages are E2EE, certain elements are not, as they are essential for service functionality: your profile picture, "about" information, and names/descriptions of your communities and groups. These are visible to others based on your privacy settings.